Kingdom Parables

THE KINGDOM PARABLES
innermost thoughts even before they speak. He debates with them from
the vantage point of the infinite difference between heaven and earth.
He has need neither of the witness of Moses nor of the Baptist. He
dissociates himself from the Jews, as if they were not his own people,
and he meets his mother as the one who is her Lord. He permits
Lazarus to lie in the grave for four days in order that the miracle of his
resurrection may be more impressive. And in the end the Johannine
Christ goes victoriously to his death of his own accord . Doceticism
considers Jesus as God and he only seemed or looked like a man. So
even though he seemed to suffer, he could not have suffered. It was just
an apparent reality and not reality. This teaching lingers on today in
Christian Scientists.
In a slight variation to this heresy we have the teachings of Simon
Magus the great magician of the period. He taught that Jesus had been
an incarnation of Simon himself, and that though he had seemed to suffer,
he had not in fact suffered .
Basilides taught that the Nous (the Spirit of God) took human form as
Jesus in order to make the unborn, nameless Father known. Since the
Nous was inhabiting Jesus, he--the Nous--could not actually suffer and
die, but changed places with Simon of Cyrene, who was transfigured to
resemble Jesus, and was crucified while the actual Jesus/Nous stood
aside and laughed .
Cerinthus taught that the Christ descended on Jesus of Nazareth at his
baptism and departed from him before his passion, so that although
Jesus was physically born, suffered and died, the Christ remained
spiritual and untouched by suffering.
Marcion taught that the Word/Christ descended upon Jesus in the form
of a dove, and ascended to the Pleroma before suffering.
36